Róisín Garvey (Green Party) | Oireachtas source

Letting me go first is a big risk.

I thank the Minister of State for coming to the House to discuss this important issue. Water is the basis of all human life.We live in, we drink it, we sleep in it, we wash ourselves in it, we grow all our food with it and we swim in it. It is such an important issue and we still have major problems with water in rural Ireland. That is why I and my colleague, Senator Byrne, are raising this matter today. The lack of infrastructure is paralysing the renewal of villages and towns and that is something on which we both fought during the programme for Government negotiations. If we do not sort out our water network, we will not have housing or people living in our villages and towns again. People will not move back into derelict buildings and they will not be able to build houses in the serviced sites around our villages and towns. I will give one example but I could cite many between Malin Head to Mizen Head. Broadford is a lovely village on the other side of the county in east Clare, very near Limerick city. It is a perfect place for people who cannot afford the city prices or who do not want to deal with city traffic or large schools and businesses. Such people could move to Broadford but it has no water infrastructure. It has an amazing school and is a lovely village but without water infrastructure nothing is going to happen there. There are so many beautiful old buildings that could be lived in, renewed and revived but they need water treatment plants, as do many other towns.

A total of 36 areas in ten counties are still releasing untreated wastewater into our environment. In 57 areas across 21 counties, raw sewage discharges are the only significant pollutant for bodies of water. We often try to blame farmers for everything but I am claiming this one back as a problem of raw sewage. Some 66% of environmental water pollution incidents are due to a lack of sufficient treatment capacity.

Of course we have one-off issues with water as well but one very important issue has come to light. It is becoming so serious now that families are ringing me whose children are experiencing kidney failure as a result of swimming in water with E. coli. This is happening again and again. County Clare had to close its beaches numerous times over the short summer during which businesses could make some money. That is why I am going to keep highlighting this as often as I can until we get the funding sorted. It was great to see this issue included in the budget but today we want clarity around when the Government is going to act. We set up Irish Water to solve the significant problems that existed such as half our treated water leaking but we need to take this seriously if we are serious about regional rebalance. Now that people can work from home more, this is the most important time to do this. If we do it right, it could be a real turning point and villages and towns that have been waning for years to finally becoming bright, shiny places to live in again. That is what we need for people's mental, physical and social health.